diff --git a/debian/control b/debian/control
index b3aa0ce4db..f4d20eb9d9 100644
--- a/debian/control
+++ b/debian/control
@@ -11,6 +11,7 @@ Standards-Version: 3.8.3
 Package: cassandra
 Architecture: all
 Depends: openjdk-6-jre-headless (>= 6b11) | java6-runtime, jsvc (>= 1.0), libcommons-daemon-java (>= 1.0), adduser
+Recommends: libjna-java
 Description: distributed storage system for structured data
  Cassandra is a distributed (peer-to-peer) system for the management
  and storage of structured data.
diff --git a/debian/default b/debian/default
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..1b56a980fd
--- /dev/null
+++ b/debian/default
@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+# NOTICE: See also /etc/cassandra/cassandra-env.sh
+
+# EXTRA_CLASSPATH provides the means to extend Cassandra's classpath with
+# additional libraries.  It is formatted as a colon-delimited list of
+# class directories and/or jar files.  For example, to enable the
+# JMX-to-web bridge install libmx4j-java and uncomment the following.
+#EXTRA_CLASSPATH="/usr/share/java/mx4j-tools.jar"
diff --git a/debian/init b/debian/init
index b0e3cad9a1..1d2961fb51 100644
--- a/debian/init
+++ b/debian/init
@@ -77,11 +77,14 @@ fi
 #
 classpath()
 {
-    cp=
+    cp="$EXTRA_CLASSPATH"
     for j in /usr/share/$NAME/*.jar; do
         [ "x$cp" = "x" ] && cp=$j || cp=$cp:$j
     done
 
+    # use JNA if installed in standard location
+    [ -r /usr/share/java/jna.jar ] && cp="$cp:/usr/share/java/jna.jar"
+
     # Include the conf directory for purposes of log4j-server.properties, and
     # commons-daemon in support of the daemonization class.
     printf "$cp:$CONFDIR:/usr/share/java/commons-daemon.jar"